Which ethernet cable for long runs between rooms?

[wikeeboy]

Hi there

 

I'm looking to run an ethernet cable from one room which houses the NBN modem, to another room which houses my audio equipment.

 

The run of cable may be 15-25mtrs. What cable should i purchase? Does it matter or make a difference to SQ? What about the termination points in the rooms?

 

Also any advice on where to purchase?

 

Thanks

[Neo]

Found these to be very good for exactly the same reason as you 

Neo

https://www.4cabling.com.au/cable/cat-6a-patch-leads/cat-6a-sftp-patch-leads.html?cable_length[0]=20m&cable_length[1]=15m

[joz]

I ran a generic cable which seemed to be more than adequate.

[bob_m_54]

40M of cat5E works for me... From the house to the shed..

[wikeeboy]

Thanks for the replies, appreciate the link for 4cabling 

[Addicted to music]

Done away with it, 100% wifi with a mesh unit.

 

Edited: I have roughed in 300m of cat4  in the house that we have never used 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Addicted to music

[Volunteer]

What path is the run taking? Under floor? Roof space? In wall? Cable-tacked to skirting boards/architraves?

 

Is the path shared at any point with any other cabling (aerial coax, electrical wiring etc)? If so, for what distance is it going to be in proximity (within 50mm) and can it be avoided?

 

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by El Tel

[wikeeboy]

41 minutes ago, Addicted to music said:

Done away with it, 100% wifi with a mesh unit.

 

Edited: I have roughed in 300m of cat4  in the house that we have never used 

 

Wifi is definitely an easy option, i just prefer to keep all wifi/bluetooth to a minimum in the house if possible.

 

I'm using a very simple system at the moment as i'm demoing some gear. Using a Pi as my roon endpoint. I'm using it's wifi and assuming an ethernet connection will be a better option hence the run of ethernet cable. Also wanting to have the foxtel box use ethernet as opposed to using wifi.

 

When you went 100% wifi, did you notice any change/difference to SQ in your music system?

[wikeeboy]

41 minutes ago, El Tel said:

What path is the run taking? Under floor? Roof space? In wall? Cable-tacked to skirting boards/architraves?

 

Is the path shared at any point with any other cabling (aerial coax, electrical wiring etc)? If so, for what distance is it going to be in proximity (within 50mm) and can it be avoided?

 

 

 

All very good questions.

 

I could go wholly under floor, or small part under floor then over roof and back down towards the floor for entry point.

 

Under the floor is already a whole heap of cables. The previous owner had something set up and i can't quite work out what they were doing yet. I need to get some crapppy clothes on and crawl under and check it all out. Never the less, i should be able to run a cable from point to point and keep clear of the other cables if necessary (50mm). I'm assuming from your query that keeping the ethernet clear of everything else is something i should aim for?

 

 

The total run may be in the 15-25 metre range. That being the case, is fibre optic an option for the bulk of the run?

[Addicted to music]

2 minutes ago, wikeeboy said:

 

Wifi is definitely an easy option, i just prefer to keep all wifi/bluetooth to a minimum in the house if possible.

 

I'm using a very simple system at the moment as i'm demoing some gear. Using a Pi as my roon endpoint. I'm using it's wifi and assuming an ethernet connection will be a better option hence the run of ethernet cable. Also wanting to have the foxtel box use ethernet as opposed to using wifi.

 

When you went 100% wifi, did you notice any change/difference to SQ in your music system?

I’ve never ran ethernet so I don’t know!   I did the test at another SNAers place and he ran both ethernet and wifi, bugger if we could tell the difference.

 When we moved here we were unable to get ADSL and ran a 4G dongle that had no ethernet support.  
if  you’re gonna run wifi and you have WIN10, you can download a WIFI analyser from the MS site for free and it will give you an indication of what other wifi channel is polluting your space and on some modem you can chance the channels.   However on a mesh system I’ve never required to do that.    I’m not running the latest version wifi either.  The latest WIFI 6 protocol is even more immune but they are costly.   

[Addicted to music]

5 minutes ago, wikeeboy said:

 

All very good questions.

 

I could go wholly under floor, or small part under floor then over roof and back down towards the floor for entry point.

 

Under the floor is already a whole heap of cables. The previous owner had something set up and i can't quite work out what they were doing yet. I need to get some crapppy clothes on and crawl under and check it all out. Never the less, i should be able to run a cable from point to point and keep clear of the other cables if necessary (50mm). I'm assuming from your query that keeping the ethernet clear of everything else is something i should aim for?

 

 

The total run may be in the 15-25 metre range. That being the case, is fibre optic an option for the bulk of the run?

If you’re running parallel cables for different things, of memory it’s 100mm according to an electrician.   But that was never adhere to due to restriction of space….    On a corporate site that I worked at they actually cabled tied it to the 30A wiring and approved it.

[Volunteer]

1 minute ago, wikeeboy said:

 

All very good questions.

 

I could go wholly under floor, or small part under floor then over roof and back down towards the floor for entry point.

 

Under the floor is already a whole heap of cables. The previous owner had something set up and i can't quite work out what they were doing yet. I need to get some crapppy clothes on and crawl under and check it all out. Never the less, i should be able to run a cable from point to point and keep clear of the other cables if necessary (50mm). I'm assuming from your query that keeping the ethernet clear of everything else is something i should aim for?

 

 

The total run may be in the 15-25 metre range. That being the case, is fibre optic an option for the bulk of the run?

 

Keeping the Ethernet away from power cables is prudent, but in thousands of km of installations I've seen relatively few EMI issues even in close proximity to 3 phase power.

 

Using shielded like in the link is a reasonable precaution for longer runs in congested spaces, but don't run that straight into your streamer. Run it to a switch and then patch from that switch into your streamer with an unshielded lead otherwise you will ground your streamer to connected devices and potentially give yourself a noise issue.

 

You could use fibre, but it is both fragile when being pulled (push with a curtain rod is the best method in domestic installation) and it requires more expensive active kit at either end to act as transceiver. Professional install of fibre will be ridiculously expensive.

[Volunteer]

4 minutes ago, Addicted to music said:

If you’re running parallel cables for different things, of memory it’s 100mm according to an electrician.

 

There is an equation somewhere... Damned if I can remember it, but I've seen recommendations of anywhere between an inch (25mm) and a foot (300mm) with 120v and 240v power cables.

 

Using a cheap EMI detector, I've seen negligible EMI at 25mm away (essentially the meter shows background EMI readings that you would get in an outdoor open space away from man made sources like overhead power lines etc) from an oven spur rated at 30amp with the oven at full chat (temp max, fan assistance on etc).

 

My 50mm suggestion is arbitrary, but satisfactory for domestic purpose. If you want to do more it certainly will not hurt. Go for it.

[wikeeboy]

3 hours ago, El Tel said:

 

Keeping the Ethernet away from power cables is prudent, but in thousands of km of installations I've seen relatively few EMI issues even in close proximity to 3 phase power.

 

Using shielded like in the link is a reasonable precaution for longer runs in congested spaces, but don't run that straight into your streamer. Run it to a switch and then patch from that switch into your streamer with an unshielded lead otherwise you will ground your streamer to connected devices and potentially give yourself a noise issue.

 

You could use fibre, but it is both fragile when being pulled (push with a curtain rod is the best method in domestic installation) and it requires more expensive active kit at either end to act as transceiver. Professional install of fibre will be ridiculously expensive.

 

Ok that's great advice, use shielded for the long run to the room, and unshielded after.

 

Appreciate the comments re fibre. 2/3 of under house is easy to manoeuvre but the last third where the living/audio room is has very little clearance. The last 1/3 will be a struggle ruling fibre out. 

[wikeeboy]

@El Tel for the long shielded run just confirming CAT6A what i'm after?

[Volunteer]

41 minutes ago, wikeeboy said:

 

Ok that's great advice, use shielded for the long run to the room, and unshielded after.

 

Appreciate the comments re fibre. 2/3 of under house is easy to manoeuvre but the last third where the living/audio room is has very little clearance. The last 1/3 will be a struggle ruling fibre out. 

Your problem with fibre is the terminating connectors. They're relatively fragile and if you're tight on space, even taping them to an old flexible curtain rod and pushing them through gaps can do damage. Then there is bend-radius to consider, you can't just squish them around a right angle.

 

If you push unterminated fibre, then you will pay an arm and a leg for splicing/polishing from a professional anyway - may as well have them do it all.

[Volunteer]

43 minutes ago, wikeeboy said:

@El Tel for the long shielded run just confirming CAT6A what i'm after?

 

Even shielded is not an absolute need if you free-run away from power. If you need to cross a power cable, do so at 90deg.

 

Lastly, bend radius is larger for shielded than unshielded (check the specs of what you buy, either terminated or on a drum for you to terminate).

 

And the golden rule is to go unshielded for the last patch into your streamer. Otherwise feel free to use shielded anywhere else you feel like it (I don't use shielded patches apart from in my study where I have a bunch of wired desktops, a NAS, a printer, a NUC Roon Core, a Nokia firewall and a bunch of Cisco switches and routers for my lab setup on occasion - and tbh, that's just my OCD nudging me to treat the study like a data centre rather than any other room in the house).

[wikeeboy]

Ahhhhh, unscrewed the phone line wall plate and the wires pulled straight out of the receptacle. ALready making mistakes 

 

@El Tel do you know which numbers i slot the blue and white wire into? What a rookie error

 

[Volunteer]

4 minutes ago, wikeeboy said:

Ahhhhh, unscrewed the phone line wall plate and the wires pulled straight out of the receptacle. ALready making mistakes 

 

@El Tel do you know which numbers i slot the blue and white wire into? What a rookie error

 

Right... Pinch the punch down block out of the face plate. You can click it back in once you're done and you've clipped off the excess.

 

Now ignore the colour guide on the punch down block, that's the older TIA 586a standard.

 

Follow this:

[wikeeboy]

35 minutes ago, El Tel said:

Right... Pinch the punch down block out of the face plate. You can click it back in once you're done and you've clipped off the excess.

 

Now ignore the colour guide on the punch down block, that's the older TIA 586a standard.

 

Follow this:

 

Thanks mate, crisis averted. All hell would have broken loose at home if that wasn't back up and running!

[Addicted to music]

If you see a wifi mesh system for around $400 and you don’t mind to give it a try, I’d give it a go.   Plenty of cheap ones that get you up and running and can get up to IP speeds at the other end of the house.   I’m running an Orbi mesh that’s 15m apart,  with the satellite system upstairs to the bedroom on the other corner of the house and get @ FTTC 100/40 no issues.      Like all modems you can also config it to give your streaming priority.

[Addicted to music]

1 hour ago, wikeeboy said:

Ahhhhh, unscrewed the phone line wall plate and the wires pulled straight out of the receptacle. ALready making mistakes 

 

@El Tel do you know which numbers i slot the blue and white wire into? What a rookie error

 

you know you’re not suppose to be touching or playing with that,  but if you know what you’re doing and get it right, no one will ever question it….

[BugPowderDust]

On 5/11/2022 at 10:40 AM, El Tel said:

You could use fibre, but it is both fragile when being pulled (push with a curtain rod is the best method in domestic installation) and it requires more expensive active kit at either end to act as transceiver. Professional install of fibre will be ridiculously expensive.

You could get armoured fibre in prefab cables from someone like codecom. This stuff is dynamite for shorter runs and is built like the proverbial bus in terms of ability to withstand damage.

 

see: https://codecom.co/product/armored-patch-cords/

Edited November 8, 2022 by BugPowderDust

[wikeeboy]

21 hours ago, BugPowderDust said:

You could get armoured fibre in prefab cables from someone like codecom. This stuff is dynamite for shorter runs and is built like the proverbial bus in terms of ability to withstand damage.

 

see: https://codecom.co/product/armored-patch-cords/

 

Thanks mate, appreciate the link. After inspecting under the house, i might require a shorter run than previously thought. Point to point may be approx 10m, just not sure how much extra will be required to bend/loop it around at the entry/exit points to the house.

 

Currently, there are a couple of coaxial cables (foxtel) that run from under the house, to the house external, then bend in through a drilled hole entering the living/audio room. I'm assuming the fibre will be more delicate and i should be wary of bending as aggressively as the foxtel cables? Does the fibre need a longish bend/loop to keep it protected? Not sure if i'm wording this well but questioning whether it will wrap around and feed in to the wall points like other cables usually do. If not, it would have to enter from under the house requiring drilling (more effort).

[BugPowderDust]

You need to keep a larger bend radius with fibre, but to be honest, cat6e run properly (to specification) isn’t hugely better in that respect.

If you’re running 10m, get a cat6 cable the right length and terminate it when it gets to the other end.

Cat6 with the right switch on each end will run at 10Gbps, will be a fraction of the cost of fibre and will be a doddle to replace if you need to later (just tie the old one to the new one and pull).

I would drill up from the floor into a wall cavity and pull it out on a wall plate with a cat6 keystone mounted like a power point.